There has been an ongoing struggle regarding the school voucher system in Georgia. The difficulty seems to be figuring out how to meet the needs of students who have special needs while keeping the budgets of the public schools in balance.
Each state gets to decide, individually, what it wants to do regarding school vouchers. As far as I am aware, there isn’t a federal law that decides this for all states, across the board. This allows each state to create a program that is tailor made to fit best with the needs, and the budget, of their state. It also means that each state must go through the struggle of figuring out how to make things work.
Right now, in Georgia, there is a requirement that a student who has special needs must attend a public school for an entire year before they can receive a voucher. The voucher uses money that comes from taxpayers to pay for a student who has special needs to attend a private school.
The one year requirement can make attending school extremely difficult for medically fragile students. It basically means that the student must spend one year in a public school, that does not meet their needs, before he or she can become eligible for a voucher that would enable the student to attend a school that can meet the student’s special needs. This isn’t easy for the student’s parents, either. No one wants to watch their child suffer.
Lawmakers in Georgia are considering a bill that would allow students with severe disabilities to be able to receive a school voucher without ever attending a public school. Republican legislators say that this is designed to cut the red tape for medically fragile children who are unable to attend public school and who need the help of private programs.
The bill defines special needs students as: “students with an individualized education program written by the school district.” It can include students who have autism, who are blind or deaf, who are physically disabled, or emotionally disturbed. It can also include students who have a learning disability or a speech impairment.
It also makes the state Board of Education responsible for deciding whether or not an individual student’s medical condition warrants waving the one-year public school enrollment requirement. It can also force the public school district to speed up the IEP process for that child.
Opponents of this bill include the Georgia Department of Education. The department says that this bill “opens the door to the state handing out vouchers to any child who wants one”.
Recently, Georgia approved a constitutional amendment that allowed the state to create charter schools, despite the objections of the local school boards. The Department of Education feels that the vouchers would siphon money from the public school districts, who are currently struggling with funding.
Image by Chuck Coker on Flickr